From the Web Site Report Archive (2005)
For a long, long while, starting in 2002 when I could finally get reliable web stats about this site, I obsessed about “my” web analytics. How many visitors? What browser did they use? What were they looking for? I published monthly summaries (which wasn’t all that obsessive, given how it led me to regular site improvements) and provided commentary. I stopped in late 2010, when it became more of a chore than a fun thing to do.
By 2018, the site reports were cluttering the site with low-value content, and (after making a backup) I decided to clean up and delete those old reports. Still, there were a few snippets worth preserving here, either for historical value, a few chuckles or a glimpse at old-school webmastering. Here it goes, copy-and-pasted more or less chronologically from 2005, with additional commentary in [italicized brackets]:
January 2005
Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, January 2005 Total Visitors 6,427 Total Pageviews 15,731 (Corrected Total: 9,943) Total Hits 19,985 Total Bytes Transferred 472.1MB Average Visitors Per Day 207.32 Average Pageviews Per Day 507.45 (Corrected Average: 320.74) Average Hits Per Day 644.67
The “corrected” numbers take out the CSS, robots.txt, PDFs, mis-filed graphic files (ICO, GIF, JPG) and other non-public files mistakenly considered “pages” by the statistics pre-digestion engine. All results are a bit higher than last month.
In any case, our top ten most popular pages are
christian-sauve.com/ 269 christian-sauve.com/texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 218 christian-sauve.com/new-york/day_2.html 192 christian-sauve.com/reviews.html 172 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-1997.htm 154 christian-sauve.com/texts/100films.htm 140 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2002.htm 139 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-1998.htm 133 christian-sauve.com/texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 120 christian-sauve.com/links.html 113
Few changes this month. Movie material continues to be a top draw.
If you care about such things, (who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Explorer|6 2841 (2046) Netscape|6 1893 (1309) Googlebot|2 475 (628) Explorer|5 448 (314) Netscape|4 243 (New)
Unsettling return by Netscape 4, like a bad nightmare that just won’t go away.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 1188 (588) www.google.ca/search 328 (121) yahoo.com/search 173 (191) google.co.uk/search 135 (New) www.google.fr/search 86 (New)
Google’s back.
One new link to report at quebec-californie.org/cgi/HyperNews/ get/emploi/768/1.html, a mention of my “Turning Pro” essay as a demonstration that Xoom existed a while ago.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
Lethargic winter month for the christian-sauve.com mailbox. Here’s the total:
1. Two days after noting (in the December 2004 Site Report) that “claustrophobic googolplexes” resulted in a googlewhack on my site, I get the message…
sorry this sounds blunt but your a googlewhack. thats not an insult by the way
and then moments later…
to finnish off the googlewhack thing just look up chlorine googolplexes on goole and you may understand what it means
and so “chlorine googolplexes” is yet another Googlewhack on my pages. The amazing thing being that the page had been uploaded only a few days earlier. My, doesn’t Google work fast?!
2. A week or two after that, I get…
Hi Christian Sauvé,
How are you?
I’m very well thank you.I felt I should let you in on a piece of good news.
You are a 1 in 8 billion chance.
Yes that’s right…
YOU ARE A GOOGLEWHACKAll the best,
Hurrah! Drive by curiosity, I ask for what words I whacked Google (noting in passing that “googolplexes” seems to be a popular choice), and…
Got it in one!!!
DERIVATIVE GOOGLEPLEXES
What a strange combination of words. Ah well. Hope it makes you happy!!!
Fortunately it does, indeed, make me happy.
4. Search Queries Oddities
(This being the section in which we take a look at the search engine queries used by various visitors to find christian-sauve.com)
Here are our top-ten queries:
solaris explanation 20 solaris explained 10 advance movie screenings 8 galactic center series 8 Christian Sauvé 7 losing weight 6 movie screening tickets 6 paula garcs nude 6 free movie screenings 5 carolyn porco 5
Few surprises here.
>people how look like movie stars when they are naked
I won’t even try to understand this.
>list of all science fiction movies ever made
Ambitious search query, wouldn’t you say?
>is the things in revelations starting to happen
Ah, a visitor from the red states.
>canadians who love americans
Send a picture first.
>dick cheney reptilian shapeshifter >event and broad significance of mike myers yeah baby
Er. No comments.
February 2005
Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, February 2005 Total Visitors 6,597 Total Pageviews 16,195 (Corrected Total: 8,933) Total Hits 18,617 Total Bytes Transferred 405.8MB Average Visitors Per Day 235.6 Average Pageviews Per Day 578.39 (Corrected Average: 319.0) Average Hits Per Day 664.89
The “corrected” numbers take out the CSS, robots.txt, PDFs, mis-filed graphic files (ICO, GIF, JPG) and other non-public files mistakenly considered “pages” by the statistics pre-digestion engine. All average results are in-line with last month. Numbers were additionally corrected to take in account a particularly clueless referral-spammer who keeps hammering this site.
In any case, our top ten most popular pages are
christian-sauve.com/ 270 christian-sauve.com/texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 252 christian-sauve.com/texts/100films.htm 172 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2001.htm 169 christian-sauve.com/reviews.html 160 christian-sauve.com/texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 154 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-1997.htm 137 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2002.htm 137 christian-sauve.com/links.html 136 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-1998.htm 123
Few changes this month. Movie material continues to be a top draw.
If you care about such things, (who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Explorer|6 2866 (2841) Netscape|6 1936 (1893) Explorer|5 507 (448) Googlebot|2 477 (475) Netscape|4 169 (243)
Unsettling returning appearance by Netscape 4, like a bad nightmare that just won’t go away.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors, excluding moronic spamming site) were
google.com/search 1238 (1188) www.google.ca/search 317 (328) yahoo.com/search 182 (173) google.co.uk/search 130 (135) www.google.fr/search 78 (86)
Straaange consistency of results.
Two more “by the way…” mentions of my reviews were seen this month. “By the way” mentions usually happen when someone on a discussion forum recommends a title, and uses one of my reviews as an illustration or a justification for the reccomendation. For instance, see livejournal.com/users/livredor/76388.html for a “by the way” mention of my review for Donald Kingsbury’s Courtship Rite. (The other mention, alas, is behind a registration login.) Perhaps I should start reviewing older books more often…
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
Busy month for the christian-sauve.com mailbox. Here’s the excitement:
1. Aaah, link-spammers begging for google juice:
My name is (…) and I’m the webmaster of a movie review website called (…). We’re a successful and highly rated review website, and we’re looking for link exchange partners. I don’t need to tell you about the benefits of link exchanging in terms search engine ranking, as a webmaster I’m sure you know, so I hope you’ll consider my offer.
Actually, (…), I’m all too aware of the bottom-feeding sites like yours begging other webmasters for links (through form emails) so that Google will improve their ranking. christian-sauve.com may not be a very good, very professional or very interesting site, but we’ve got our honour and we won’t “consider your offer” of link exchanges. We’ve got the traffic that we deserve, (hundreds of visitors per day) and that’s all right with us.
I’ve already placed a link to your website on my links page (…) (it will remain only temporarily unless I hear back from you), and I’d appreciate if you’d do the same.
Aaah, the plot thins. Well, (…), let me tell you of a little policy we have, here at christian-sauve.com: If we like your site, we will link to it. But we won’t be part of a little link-hostage scenario in which your “good will” depends on ours. Like our site? Link to it. Otherwise, don’t bother.
One final note, (…): Had you provided us with a valid return address, or had your “highly rated review web site” provided any sort of professional contact mechanism, the answer you would have received in your mailbox would have been vastly more polite than the one placed here. Otherwise, well, the customer service staff here at christian-sauve.com gets a bit annoyed and strips away the thin veneer of politeness over its endless reservoirs of sarcasm.
2. Apparently, it was a month for clarifying our policies, for the following query landed in the mailbox:
This is (…) from (…) Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing…
(…) will soon be released in Canada (and then in the US in the fall) –as you have reviewed (…) in the past would you like to be on our reviewers list?
Oooh, the quandary. On one hand, (…) is a highly-anticipated book that I will buy no matter what. On the other hand, my previous experience reviewing a book directly from/for the author/publisher has left a oddly mixed impression.
So that’s why, a few months ago, I decided that I would review books on my time and dime. (I mention this in my Reviews FAQ.) Such a broadly sweeping policy simplifies the paperwork and frees up my inner critic.
3. Interestingly, only a day or two passed before I got another email asking:
Enjoy your edgy reviews. Wanted to see if you’d consider taking a look at (…), my debut novel about (…).
What did I say about this policy simplifying the paperwork? Sir, if I was able to turn down (…) in the previous email, I can turn down anything. Sorry, no, (it’s nothing personal) but thanks for the “edgy reviews” comment!
4. Finally, good egoboo from the following:
I happened upon your site when I googled “Being Canadian”. Excellent essay; it sums up my feelings on the country aptly.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Warmest regards,
(…), a Canadian in the UK
It strikes me that my “Being Canadian” essay continues to find readers month after month, doing its own little bit of Canadian ambassadorship. As it was intended to.
4. Search Queries Oddities
(This being the section in which we take a look at the search engine queries used by various visitors to find christian-sauve.com)
Here are our top-ten queries:
>free movie screenings 16 >amazon bookmarklet 11 >that bringas woman 10 >solaris explanation 10 >being canadian 9 >free movie tickets 9 >annette bennings hair 6 >solaris explained 6 >christian sauvé 5 >paula garcès nude 5
Few surprises here.
>why is it good being canadian
It’s all good, baby. All good.
>conflicts between french canadians and brutish
That’s British, dude, British. Don’t make things worse!
>pornography good acting interesting dialogue
In other news, they’re < em>still looking for a honest man in Athens.
>bin laden swearing in punjabi clip
Paging Bruce Sterling… The world is now one of your novels…
>what children movies came to theaters in 1997 >what did people whee during the elizabethan era >what happens when the tundra is being destroyed >what is being canadian >what is realstate fiction novel >is politeness still important in canada >is raekwon christian
So many questions, so little sense in asking them.
March 2005
Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, February 2005 Total Visitors 8,401 Total Pageviews 19,152 (Corrected Total: 10,680) Total Hits 21,854 Total Bytes Transferred 490.6MB Average Visitors Per Day 271 Average Pageviews Per Day 617.8 (Corrected Average: 344.5) Average Hits Per Day 704.96
The “corrected” numbers take out the CSS, robots.txt, PDFs, mis-filed graphic files (ICO, GIF, JPG) and other non-public files mistakenly considered “pages” by the statistics pre-digestion engine. All results are frighteningly higher than last month. Numbers were additionally corrected to take in account a particularly clueless referral-spammer who keeps hammering this site. (Though he seems to have stopped in the last half of the month)
In any case, our top ten most popular pages are
christian-sauve.com/ 423christian-sauve.com/texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 301christian-sauve.com/reviews.html 207christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2001.htm 200christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2002.htm 184christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-1997.htm 164christian-sauve.com/texts/100films.htm 155christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-1998.htm 149christian-sauve.com/links.html 143christian-sauve.com/search.html 143
Few changes this month. Movie material continues to be a top draw.
If you care about such things, (who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Explorer|6 3705 (2866)Netscape|6 2426 (1936)Googlebot|2 642 (477)Explorer|5 588 (507)Netscape|4 303 (169)
Netscape 4 just won’t go away, but given the domination of the first two browsers, it’s not such a bad thing.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors, excluding moronic spamming site) were
google.com/search 1697 (1238)www.google.ca/search 450 (317)yahoo.com/search 204 (182)google.co.uk/search 182 (130)www.google.fr/search 110 (78)
Straaange consistency of results. Otherwise, there seems to have been an across-the-board increase in search engine referals.
No new links were noticed this month. Googling around, though, I see that my rather negative review of John Skipp and Craig Spector’s The Bridge was selectively edited to a near-rave on Spector’s web site at http://craigspector.com/read.htm I’m not just oddly pleased at the mention, but honestly amused. Such chutzpah! Craig Spector rocks!
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
Interesting month for the christian-sauve.com mailbox. Here are the details:
1. Jon from Houston (Hello, Texas!) writes to say:
Hello christian. i’m jon .and i was looking around for free movie tickets and came across yours. Thanks for the 411 on how to obtain them. oh well that’s all. bye
Thank you. Glad to be helpful.
2. This is très cool: After looking for “canadian propaganda in quebec”, someone from a gouv.qc.ca domain (That’s the “Provincial Government of Quebec” domain) chances upon my flag-waving “Being Canadian” essay and is sufficiently piqued by my mention of “separatist fever has somewhat abated, leading to a resolution of Canada’s constitutional crisis not through a decisive victory, but sheer exhaustion” to write…
T’es assurément inspiré, un véritable fils spirituel de Trudeau, mais ne soyons pas dupe des beaux discours. Les principes portées par le Fédération canadien (si fédération il y a). Il serait prématuré de croire que le mouvement souverainiste est mort, loin de là. Et l’attachement des Québécois, n’est-il qu’un accomodement fonctionel? Personnellement je n’ai que très peu d’attachement pour le Canada que je parcours comme un pays étranger. Ma première patrie restera le Québec qu’il soit indépendant ou pas.
Which I’ll loosely translate by…
You’re obviously inspired, a real spiritual inheritor of Trudeau, but let’s not be fooled by nice speeches. The ideals carried by the canadian Federation (if there’s such a thing). Il would be premature to believe that the sovereignist movement is dead, far from it. And the attachment of Quebeckers [to Canada], isn’t it just a functional arrangement? Personally, I have very little attachment to Canada, which I visit like a foreign country. My first country will remain Quebec, whether it’s independent or not.
You would think that I’d answer this message sarcastically, but I won’t. For one thing, being called “un véritable fils spirituel de Trudeau” may be a deadly insult in separatist circles, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s like hitting a Grand Slam.
For another, I may not understand the separatist mindset (why, oh why “protect the culture” by raising barricades?) but I’ve got enough separatist friends and family to respect the validity of their conviction. My correspondent is being reasonable and articulate: we will agree to disagree. (Plus, given what I’m seeing in Quebec politics, I’m not so sure that sovereignty has been “out-talked” yet. Revisions to the essay will be made.)
3. Finally, Charlene from San Francisco (hello California!) writes to ask…
I noticed a writer of Nanoclaus was one Christian Patterson. Any info on him? I’m way over 50 but have to say this is one very cool website! I’ll read on…
Thanks for the kind comments!
As far as the author of “Nanoclaus” (published in NanoDreams, which I reviewed in June 1999 [May 2010: In an essay now off-line]) is concerned, Kent Patterson (I was sorry to discover and report) passed away in 1995 shortly after the “Nanodreams” theme anthology was published.
(There is (at least) one Christian Patterson on the web, the best-known of which is a fairly good photographer at christianpatterson.com)
4. Search Queries Oddities
(This being the section in which we take a look at the search engine queries used by various visitors to find christian-sauve.com)
Here are our top-ten queries:
>free movie tickets 18 >free movie screenings 15 >good films 12 >solaris explanation 12 >roderick thorp 9 >christian sauve 8 >fight club book review 8 >free movie screening 7 >sauve 7 >being canadian 6
Few surprises here.
>astronaut michael collins bohemian >book reviews on grendel bohemian >bohemian book reviews 2005 >bohemian flash movies >bohemian movie on line free >bohemian movie review triple x >bohemian movie reviews and misery >bohemian movie reviews the rock >bohemian review movie die hard >bohemian review of hypercube >bohemian review pulp fiction >bohemian reviews on dazed and confused >bohemia n reviews space balls >bohemian statistics >bohemian torrent sites >bohemian tradition and the dragonfly movie >cold fear bohemian review >deep impact bohemian tv show >fight club bohemian >good bohemian films >goodfellas bohemian values >movie critic bohemian >movie review bohemian pulp fiction >neanderthal hybrids bohemian perspective >review hot shots charlie sheen bohemian >shawshank redemption bohemian movie review >top 100 bohemian books >top bohemian films >website designers ottawa bohemian >weird bohemian artworks >whole bohemian films >why i left the contemporary bohemian music book review >www.bohemian organizers
I haven’t done one of those in a while, but I’m feeling sufficiently annoyed at the behaviour of the so-called “Christians” at the Terri Schiavo puppet show that I pulled most of the search queries containing “christian” and replaced the word by “bohemian”. Kind of gives you a perspective on the whole thing, doesn’t it?
>how does the juror george dawes green end >how much weight can you lose in a month or two >how to attend movie test screening >how to be an environmentalist >how to get into movie premieres for free >what dreams may come cinematographic paper >what is the hidden premise for the movie thirteenth floor >when does the chrysalids take place >why leelee wont love me by primitive whore >why you shouldn't put your photo on the internet
Sometimes, I imagine Google as kind of a wise advisor, trusted confidante, all-knowing Oracle ready to answer the questions of its million users. Then I take a look at what they actually ask through Google and I wonder how much longer the human race can survive.
>why is being canadian better
Do you even have to ask?
>mövenpick pronunciation
I was looking at this search query (“What do you mean, how it’s pronounced? It’s perfectly obvious! It’s…”) when I realized that “Mövenpick” can be written as “Move’n’Pick”. (Mövenpick restaurants are places where you go from “station” to “stations” to buy elements of your meal.) Depression followed when I realized that I was boldly rediscovering what had been obvious to most people for the longest time. Gaah. Next I’ll be telling you about the hidden arrow in the FedEx logo.
April 2005
Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, April 2005 Total Visitors 8,273 Total Pageviews 19,493 (Corrected Total: 12,267) Total Hits 22,240 Total Bytes Transferred 482.8MB Average Visitors Per Day 276 Average Pageviews Per Day 649.8 (Corrected Average: 408.9) Average Hits Per Day 741.33
The “corrected” numbers take out the CSS, robots.txt, PDFs, mis-filed graphic files (ICO, GIF, JPG) and other non-public files mistakenly considered “pages” by the statistics pre-digestion engine. All results are a bit higher than last month.
In any case, our top ten most popular pages are
christian-sauve.com/index.html 385 christian-sauve.com/texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 342 christian-sauve.com/reviews.html 212 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2002.htm 181 christian-sauve.com/texts/100films.htm 171 christian-sauve.com/texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 171 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-1997.htm 153 christian-sauve.com/texts/losing-weight.htm 144 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2001.htm 140 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-1999.htm 134
Few changes this month. Movie material continues to be a top draw.
If you care about such things, (who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Explorer|6 3723 (3705) Netscape|6 2267 (2426) Netscape|4 699 (303) Googlebot|2 466 (642) Explorer|5 366 (588)
Netscape 4? What the heck?
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 1904 (1697) www.google.ca/search 460 (450) google.co.uk/search 187 (182) yahoo.com/search 134 (204) www.google.fr/search 103 (110)
Not much change here .
A few new links this month, mostly from the new blog at fractale-framboise.com (which I co-founded, truth be told) and assorted French-Canadian friends pointing back to this site.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
Moribund month for the christian-sauve.com mailbox. Here are the details:
1. This one was a genuine puzzler:
Have written a Christian satire on conquering cancer through humor and faith. Interested in guidelines and query. The world needs a boost in hope and humor.
What, in all multi-megabytes of content on this very personal web site, would cause otherwise rational people to assume that I was accepting articles from other people than myself? Hint: christian-sauve.com isn’t just a URL!
2. My review of Frank Camper’s Merc continues to attract attention. (If you recall previous entries on this subject, I went from mild scepticism about the paramilitary exploits of Frank Camper to assured belief after many many people wrote to me confirming that his biography is entirely factual.)
I happened to pull this review up on Frank Camper. Interesting. At first I was put off till I got to the end and the added comments you made.
Yes, I assure you all that Frank tells is very true.
If he could tell all the truth it would be really blow some minds.
Wow.
4. Search Queries Oddities
(This being the section in which we take a look at the search engine queries used by various visitors to find christian-sauve.com)
Here are our top-ten queries:
>free movie tickets 11 >free movie screening 10 >solaris movie explained 10 >solaris movie explanation 9 >solaris explained 8 >free movie screenings 8 >good films 8 >sauve 7 >christian sauve 7
Few surprises here. Did SOLARIS debut on Network TV this month, or what?
>the celestine prophecy is trash >the united states shouldnt join kyoto accord because thats not good for america
You’re searching, or saying?
>the different between the first movie of romeo and the second movie
Is this coherent, or I’m just really tired?
>harry potter 3 movie screw ups no one noticed
Wellll, if no one noticed, how can you find them on the web, mister smarty-pants? Can you explain that? Huh, can you?
>andie macdowell commercial bowling
And the award for “words that don’t go together” goes to…
May 2005
Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, May 2005 Total Visitors 8,429 Total Pageviews 20,575 (Corrected Total: 13,526) Total Hits 23,074 Total Bytes Transferred 504.1MB Average Visitors Per Day 271.9 Average Pageviews Per Day 663.7 (Corrected Average: 436.3) Average Hits Per Day 744.32
The “corrected” numbers take out the CSS, robots.txt, PDFs, mis-filed graphic files (ICO, GIF, JPG) and other non-public files mistakenly considered “pages” by the statistics pre-digestion engine. All results are a bit higher than last month.
In any case, our top ten most popular pages are
christian-sauve.com/index.htm 444 christian-sauve.com/texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 384 christian-sauve.com/reviews.html 219 christian-sauve.com/texts/100films.htm 219 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2002.htm 204 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2001.htm 193 christian-sauve.com/texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 186 christian-sauve.com/francais/sff-1997.htm 145 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-1998.htm 139 christian-sauve.com/search.html 139
Few changes this month. Movie material continues to be a top draw. THe “Free Movie Tickets” essay got a significant boost for mentionning STAR WARS as an example of movies for which you won’t get a free ticket.
If you care about such things, (who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Explorer|6 3908 (3723) Netscape|6 1907 (2267) Netscape|4 1089 (699) Googlebot|2 450 (466) Explorer|5 445 (366)
Why won’t someone just track down Netscape 4 and shoot it dead?
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 1958 (1904) www.google.ca/search 445 (460) google.co.uk/search 202 (187) yahoo.com/search 120 (134) www.google.fr/search 111 (103)
Not much change here .
One new link this month, but it’s a neat one: My breathless review of Neuromancer got excerpted by a student doing a seminar on cyberpunk SF, right underneath Robert Ebert’s review of THE MATRIX. W00t! See http:// fs6.depauw.edu:50080/ ~aevans/ HONR102/ WebPages/ Spring2005/ Alex/ homepage/ homepage2.html and click “Reviews” for the context.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
Dead month for the christian-sauve.com mailbox. Aside from one empty message, one wannabee-spammer and an office colleague trying to reach me while I was on medical leave, only one message warranted attention.
1. An author writes to ask…
Thanks for the nice book review, I just now found it on the web.
Aside…do you have any idea where I might find a copy or two?
I don’t like shilling for other commercial sites here, but I haven’t heard of a single book that couldn’t be bought through the fine www.abebooks.com (Which is also pretty damn useful for estimating how much your signed first edition hardcovers are worth!)
4. Search Queries Oddities
(This being the section in which we take a look at the search engine queries used by various visitors to find christian-sauve.com)
Here are our top-ten queries:
>good films 18 >free movie screenings 13 >françoise yip nude 10 >free movie tickets 10 >free star wars movie tickets 9 >amazon isbn 7 >book review of snapshots from hell 7 >sauve 7 >dollmaker 7 >solaris explanation 7
A number of unusual choices there. “Françoise Yip Nude?” Is it because we’re the only site out there that knows how to input a ç-cedille in HTML?
>christian sauvé reviews neuromancer
Spoooky. Someone’s now looking for my reviews by name?
>fahrenheit 451 character reviews 2 >fahrenheit 451 character sketch 2 >fahrenheit 451 christian review 1 >fahrenheit 451 lack of socialization 1 >fahrenheit 451s setting 2
Yup, looks like High School is about to end, and essays are due any time now…
>you watch me like a ten car highway wreck with detached vulgar curiosity.
Interesting query. Google says it’s a song lyric.
June 2005
Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, June 2005 Total Visitors 6,741 Total Pageviews 15,203 (Corrected Total: 9,378) Total Hits 17,181 Total Bytes Transferred 380.9MB Average Visitors Per Day 224.7 Average Pageviews Per Day 506.76 (Corrected Average: 312.6) Average Hits Per Day 572.7
The “corrected” numbers take out the CSS, robots.txt, PDFs, mis-filed graphic files (ICO, GIF, JPG) and other non-public files mistakenly considered “pages” by the statistics pre-digestion engine. All results are significantly lower than last month, which I’m seeing as a welcome correction given the end of the school term.
In any case, our top ten most popular pages are
/index.html 416 /reviews/1998/books98c.htm 364 /texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 286 /texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 188 /reviews.html 162 /about.html 138 /texts/100films.htm 138 /reviews/movies-2001.htm 137 /reviews/2001/books01f.htm 135 /reviews/movies-1998.htm 131
Few changes this month. Movie material continues to be a top draw. I’m as mystified as you are (well, okay; more mystified than you are) at the reason why old 1998 reviews could end up in the second spot.
If you care about such things, (who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Explorer|6 2988 (3908) Netscape|6 1568 (1907) Googlebot|2 555 (450) Netscape|4 401 (1089) Explorer|5 352 (445)
Argh. Netscape 4 still there.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 1307 (1958) www.google.ca/search 343 (445) google.co.uk/search 148 (202) google.co.in/search 110 (New) yahoo.com/search 95 (120)
Not much change here. Google-India replaces Google-France in the Top-5. Overall decrease in hits from search engines.
Two new link this month: Someone wrote to ask me to explain the ending of Chip Kidd’s The Cheese Monkeys (see below) and then posted a link to my site on her blog. Have a look at hellomy.name/is/phoebe/ (Hm… Currently off-line.)
Then my name popped up in Nicholas Whyte’s annual review of the Hugo Nominees. Have a look mid-way down the list at explorers.whyte.com/sf/Hugo2005.htm
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
Not much, but enough
1. Another Sauve wrote to say…
Always interesting to see the talents of others who may be connected genetically.
Thanks! (And for once, I regret my “anonymize all comments” policy, because the Sauve who wrote this is one stunning sharp-shooter.)
2. Poebe, from South California, wrote in reaction to my review of Chip Kidd’s The Cheese Monkeys to ask…
Hey – so you “get” the last page of “The Cheese Monkeys”?
I sure don’t and I’m cranky about it. Been puzzling for two days. Think it may have something to do with ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ – or maybe Himilsy was the fish? I DON’T GET IT!
Clues? Hints? Blatant explainations for the retarded?
Rather than re-print my answer here, go check my (amended) review for the details…
3. A pseudonymous fan wrote to state…
Against all odds, I found your website.
I like it. Keep up the good work.
Thanks!
4. Others wrote (in French) to ask about the current state of hard SF and to recommend the film CITY OF GOD (which, after following the recommendation, I can heartily endorse), but those topics are best covered at Fractale-Framboise.com rather than here…
4. Search Queries Oddities
(This being the section in which we take a look at the search engine queries used by various visitors to find christian-sauve.com)
Here are our top-ten queries:
>book review snapshots from hell 12 >snapshots from hell book review 11 >good films 11 >amazon isbn 9 >free movie screenings 9 >solaris explanation 9 >advance screenings 8 >being canadian 8 >dave nichol 7 >canadian browsers 7
Not much to say here.
>10 must see films this summer
The way things are going, you’ll be lucky to find three of them.
>book review of snapshots from hell x6 >book review of snapshots from hell by peter robinson x4 >book review on snapshots from hell x3 >book review on snapshots from hell by peter robinson x2 >book review snapshots from the hell x2 >review of snapshots from hell x2 >review on snapshots from hell x2 >snapshots from hell x2 >snapshots from hell book review x6 >snapshots from hell peter robinson review x2 >snapshots from hell peter robinson x2
Some MBA class clearly had a book-reviewing assignement. I wonder how many of them tried to pass off the review as their own, and how many got burned by it.
>how to learn hacking examples from swordfish movie
No. No, no, no. Wrong.
>top 100 stoner films
Are there even more than twenty-five stoner films?
July 2005
Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, July 2005 Total Visitors 6,564 Total Pageviews 14,774 (Corrected Total: 9,388) Total Hits 16,738 Total Bytes Transferred 382.2MB Average Visitors Per Day 211.74 Average Pageviews Per Day 476.58 (Corrected Average: 302.8) Average Hits Per Day 539.93
The “corrected” numbers take out the CSS, robots.txt, PDFs, mis-filed graphic files (ICO, GIF, JPG) and other non-public files mistakenly considered “pages” by the statistics pre-digestion engine. All results are a bit lower than last month, which isn’t unexpected or abnormal given the summer.
In any case, our top ten most popular pages are
/index.html 440 /texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 277 /reviews.html 202 /texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 158 /reviews/movies-2001.htm 142 /about.html 133 /texts/100films.htm 127 /search.html 123 /reviews/movies-2002.htm 120 /links.html 119
Few changes this month. Movie material continues to be a top draw.
If you care about such things, (who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Explorer|6 2499 (2988) Netscape|6 1985 (1568) Netscape|4 519 (401) Googlebot|2 344 (555) Explorer|5 307 (352)
Argh. Netscape|4 still there. Netscape|6 (FireFox) is on the rise, though…
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 1092 (1307) www.google.ca/search 204 (343) google.co.uk/search 125 (148) yahoo.com/search 88 (95) google.com.au/search 58 (New)
Not much change here. Google-England replaces Google-India in the Top-5. The usual summer decrease in hits from search engines.
Two new link this month: Someone using my review of one of The Onion’s collections to “prove” that an article had appeared on the site previously. Not particularly interesting, but you can check it out at www.hyperorg.com/blogger/ mtarchive/004210.html
The other new link is short but very very sweet: yetikeeper.stumbleupon.com gives a thumbs-up to christian-sauve.com and adds “Solid reviews on a variety of books.” Whee!
(There was also a whole new slew of spamming sites, but there’s no point in listing those, isn’t it?)
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
It’s summer. People are doing off-line things. One loose message gently floats down from our upturned mailbox.
1. I was amused at the directness of this message (from a Greek visitor, using a German email provider, asking a Canadian about “foreign” movies… proving that globalization never ceases to amaze.)
i am looking for goddamned foreign films…..any suggestions????.!!
Here’s the answer I sent back:
I should start by saying that your definition of ‘foreign’ is likely to be different from mine. Possibilities in Ottawa, Canada may not be valid in your city. This being said, here are a few more suggestions in increasing order of difficulty/cost:
1. Television: I’m always surprised at what plays on TV late late at night. Scour your weekly schedule (on-line versions can be searched), learn to program your VCR and you could net at least two or three foreign movies per week.
2. Your usual video store: We North-Americans always complain about the Blockbuster chain and its bland selection of mass-market films (though things a slightly more adventurous in Canada than in the US, I gather), but it usually has a small but interesting selection of big foreign hits and current foreign releases.
3. Unusual video stores: Big cities often have specialty shops catering to the city’s ethnic communities. Those stores often carry a selection of video titles to rent, though this may not be obvious from the storefront. Ottawa, for instance, has a number of small Chinese, Philipinese, Lebanese or Indian stores where it’s possible to get foreign movies sub-titled in English. Also have a look at comic or gaming stores (another ethnic community, one may say), which often carry a good selection of anime films or Chinese/Japanese action movies.
4. Online shops: Yes, everything can be ordered up online, should you be willing to pay and put up with possible DVD-Region issues. Pay particular attention to the possibility that an online retailer in your country may specialize in imports, and deal with the customs/taxes/DVD-Region issues for you.
5. Travel! Expensive, but hey –sometimes you just have to do shopping by yourself.
I’m purposefully leaving off on-line file sharing from this list. Its legality is dubious, the payoff is low and the quality often execrable. Plus, I figure that other people have a lot more experience with it than I have.
In some ways, on-line file sharing is eroding many of the artificial market restrictions imposed by studios. (I ended up buying a copy of the only film I downloaded illegally, EQUILIBRIUM, and that was because it was never released theatrically in Canada) This, however, doesn’t make it any more justifiable from a copyright point of view.
If, however, you were looking for foreign movies literally damned by God, I’m afraid you’re going to have to ask him directly for the list. 🙂
4. Search Queries Oddities
(This being the section in which we take a look at the search engine queries used by various visitors to find christian-sauve.com)
Here are our top-ten queries:
>amazon isbn 11 >solaris explanation 10 >good movies list 8 >frank camper 8 >roderick thorp 6 >advance movie screenings 6 >free movie screenings 5 >list of good films 5 >advance screenings 5 >movie test screenings 5
Not much to say here.
>aftertaste of eating in a christian context
Too easy!
>battlefield earth is utter cinematic tripe
I am proud and honoured to show up whenever this query is typed into Google.
August 2005
Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, August 2005 Total Visitors 6,453 Total Pageviews 14,028 (Corrected Total: 8,859) Total Hits 17,368 Total Bytes Transferred 400.7MB Average Visitors Per Day 208.16 Average Pageviews Per Day 452.51 (Corrected Average: 285.8) Average Hits Per Day 560.25
The “corrected” numbers take out the CSS, robots.txt, PDFs, mis-filed graphic files (ICO, GIF, JPG) and other non-public files mistakenly considered “pages” by the statistics pre-digestion engine. All results are slightly lower than last month, which continues the usual summertime lull.
Our top ten most popular pages are
/index.html 426 /texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 246 /reviews.html 167 /texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 147 /reviews/movies-2001.htm 140 /reviews/movies-2004.htm 122 /reviews/movies-2002.htm 121 /about.html 119 /texts/summer-films1999a.htm 108 /francais/ 103
Few changes this month. Movie material continues to be a top draw.
If you care about such things, (who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Explorer|6 2480 (2499) Netscape|6 2076 (1985) Netscape|4 389 (519) Googlebot|2 378 (344) Explorer|5 307 (307)
Is Netscape|6 (FireFox) about to take the top spot away from IE6?
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 857 (1092) www.google.ca/search 201 (204) google.co.uk/search 117 (125) yahoo.com/search 74 (88) google.com.au/search 64 (58)
Not much change here. If the search engines don’t deliver visitors, the site suffers…
No new links this month.
However, the following is too good to pass up. Through an idle web search, I was able to track a probable case of creative borrowing by an energy lobbyist. Compare this segment of my review of Terence Moan’s The Deadly Frost…
…a gigantic Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) tanker suffers a catastrophic accident right in the middle of New York Harbour, unleashing a cloud of cryogenized methane. As soon as the winds pick up, the gas cloud will make its was to Brooklyn and Manhattan, where it will instantly freeze solid everything it encounters. Oh, and any spark will detonate the entire cloud. Eight million lives are at stake. The Brooklyn beaches are packed. Rush hour is about to begin. Welcome to frozen toxic catastrophe.
…with this excerpt of presentation notes:
The plot goes something like this: A gigantic LNG tanker suffers a catastrophic accident in the middle of New York Harbor, unleashing a cloud of super-cooled methane. As the wind picks up, it makes its way to Manhattan where it will instantly freeze everyone and everything it encounters. Any spark will instantly detonate the cloud. Eight million lives are at stake, the beaches are packed and so on.
(I’m not providing the URL, given that it’s in PDF on a state government web site. But just copy-and-Google for evidence.)
While I admire the writer’s keen eye for editing adjectives out of my prose, an acknowledgement couldn’t have hurt, y’know? (Especially coming from someone working for, ahem, a company that on July 27th 2005, “reported second-quarter net income of $3,138 million”.)
(There was also a bunch of spam referrals for poker sites, but there’s no point in listing those, isn’t it?)
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
It’s summer. People are doing off-line things. One single empty message gently floats down from our upturned mailbox. And we go back to drowsing.
4. Search Queries Oddities
(This being the section in which we take a look at the search engine queries used by various visitors to find christian-sauve.com)
Here are our top-ten queries:
>amazon isbn 14 >carter catastrophe 12 >christian sauve 10 >free movie premiere tickets 8 >solaris explanation 7 >frank camper 6 >movie test screenings 5 >posleen 5 >asymmetric astigmatism 5 >free movie screening tickets 4
Not much to say here.
>anno dracula and review and christian sauve
Okay, this is scary. People aren’t just looking for reviews, but my reviews? What’s wrong with these people?
September 2005
Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, September 2005 Total Visitors 5,881 Total Pageviews 13,058 (Corrected Total: 8,207) Total Hits 15,245 Total Bytes Transferred 350.9MB Average Visitors Per Day 196.03 Average Pageviews Per Day 435.26 (Corrected Average: 273.6) Average Hits Per Day 508.16
The “corrected” numbers take out the CSS, robots.txt, PDFs, mis-filed graphic files (ICO, GIF, JPG) and other non-public files mistakenly considered “pages” by the statistics pre-digestion engine. All results are slightly lower than last month, which -given the fact that the holidays are over- is leading me to wonder what I’ve done to anger the Google gods.
Our top ten most popular pages are
/index.html 363 /texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 180 /reviews/movies-2001.htm 152 /reviews/1998/books98c.htm 128 /reviews.html 124 /texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 120 /about.html 117 /texts/solaris-explanation.htm 116 /reviews/movies-2004.htm 113 /reviews/movies-2002.htm 112
Few changes this month. Movie material continues to be a top draw.
If you care about such things, (who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Netscape|6 2214 (2076) Explorer|6 2013 (2480) Googlebot|2 345 (378) Netscape|4 263 (389) Explorer|5 223 (307)
Huh! For the first time ever, Netscape|6 takes the top spot away from IE6.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 621 (857) www.google.ca/search 146 (201) yahoo.com/search 69 (74) google.co.uk/search 66 (117) ask.com/web 65 (New)
Google! Why have you forsaken me?
No new links this month.
There was a bunch of pok*r referal spam, though.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
Two messages this month:
1. Frank from Boston comments, apropos something or another…
good service
I have no clue what this refer to, but I’m not too proud: I’ll accept the kind words.
2. James from Washington writes to say…
I just finished reading your article on “Being Canadian”
Now, “Being American” I found the article both entertaining and informative.
Thank you! It’s easy to write an article on the virtues of Canada and get a good reaction from Canadians, but getting kudos from non-Canadians means I’m doing something right.
4. Search Queries Oddities
(This being the section in which we take a look at the search engine queries used by various visitors to find christian-sauve.com)
Here are our top-ten queries:
>solaris explanation x13 >solaris movie explained x10 >solaris movie explanation x9 >christian sauve x9 >amazon isbn x6 >frank camper x5 >being canadian x5 >amazon bookmarklet x5 >movie test screenings x4 >free movie premiere tickets x4
Not much to say here.
>what are a few meaningful quotes from the movie gattaca >what being a canadian is like >what is asimovs foundations planet at the outer limits of the galaxy >what is mathemagics >what is the ending to the book fever by robin cook >what is the relevance of the movie stepford wives to technological innovation >what is the thesis of the perfect storm by junger >when does the haloes back after prk >which countries were canada fighting against in ww2 >which passages page numbers motorcycle diaries edited later >who first settled in what now is know as canada >who wrote the song what is love that was featured in the movie a night at the ro >why canada shouldnt have a melting pot >why does a movie studio have a sneak preview of a movie
People ask the silliest things…
October 2005
Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, October 2005 Total Visitors: 8,455 Total Pageviews: 16,910 (Corrected Total: 9,988) Total Hits: 19,486 Total Bytes Transferred: 476.9MB Average Visitors Per Day: 272.74 Average Pageviews Per Day: 545.48 (Corrected Average: 322.19) Average Hits Per Day: 628.58
The “corrected” numbers take out the CSS, robots.txt, PDFs, mis-filed graphic files (ICO, GIF, JPG) and other non-public files mistakenly considered “pages” by the statistics pre-digestion engine. All results are higher than last month, but don’t read too much into that — I really got hammered by pok*r referral spam this month, and the corrected total takes that into account.
Our top ten most popular pages are
christian-sauve.com/ 422 christian-sauve.com/texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 251 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2001.htm 157 christian-sauve.com/reviews.html 144 christian-sauve.com/texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 140 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-1998.htm 126 christian-sauve.com/about.html 125 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2002.htm 124 christian-sauve.com/reviews/index.html 120 christian-sauve.com/texts/summer-films1999a.htm 119
Few changes this month. Movie material continues to be a top draw.
If you care about such things, (and who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Explorer|6 3487 (2013) Netscape|6 2874 (2214) Googlebot|2 346 (345) Netscape|2 297 (New) Explorer|5 297 (227)
IE6 regains the top spot, and I’m as amazed as you are at the Top-5 ranking of Netscape|2.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 812 (621) www.google.ca/search 220 (146) google.co.uk/search 75 (66) yahoo.com/search 71 (69) ask.com/web 64 (65)
One cool new link this month: Peter Watts approvingly links to my review of his short story “A Word for Heathens” by saying “Christian Sauvé called it ‘awe-inspiring in its unremitting pessimism’ in his review, which is one of the nicer things that anyone has ever said about my work.”
Alas, The referal log was a source of almost uninterrupted spam.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
A few new messages this month:
1. Embarrasingly enough, a reader reports broken links on our Français page. Oups!
2. Another anonymous reader came to christian-sauve.com via my (French-language) essay on Neuromancer (at www.revue-solaris.com) and is satisfied enough to say…
I just read your essay in french called “Neuromancer, vingt ans après”.
I just wanted to tell you how I appreciated this.
I just discovered Neuromancer (21 years after it’s first publication) and your essay is a good “etat des lieux”.
Gee, thanks!
3. Finally, Nancy from Winnipeg discovered my essay on Eye Laser Surgery and wrote to say…
I’ve spent a few hours reading the internet on PRK and yours was the most informative article from a practical standpoint. (funny, too!)
Hey, I didn’t suffer though it all so that people could be bored and depressed!
4. Search Queries Oddities
(This being the section in which we take a look at the search engine queries used by various visitors to find christian-sauve.com)
Here are our top-ten queries:
>christian sauve x12 >amazon isbn x8 >frank camper x7 >movie sneak previews x7 >solaris explanation x6 >free movie premiere tickets x6 >sauve x5 >free advance movie screenings x5 >carter catastrophe x4 >sneak preview movie tickets x4
Not much to say here.
>being canadian christian suave
I’m flattered that someone would actually look for this, but at least spell the frickin’ name right…
>canada vs sauve
Whoah! This will fuel my paranoid fantasies.
>cartoon robber in black mask taking a sheep pictures
What the…?
>godzilla is better than babe the pig
Interesting…
>naked pictures of monique imes-jackson
Eeek.
>photos christian sauve
They’re my web logs, and they’re freaking me out! (I kid: As it happens, I know exactly who entered this search query and why.)
November 2005
Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, November 2005 Total Visitors: 6,985 Total Pageviews: 13,764 (Corrected Total: 9,098) Total Hits: 15,839 Total Bytes Transferred: 338.1MB Average Visitors Per Day: 232.83 Average Pageviews Per Day: 458.8 (Corrected Average: 303.3) Average Hits Per Day: 527.96
The “corrected” numbers take out the CSS, robots.txt, PDFs, mis-filed graphic files (ICO, GIF, JPG) and other non-public files mistakenly considered “pages” by the statistics pre-digestion engine. All results are significantly lower than last month, but don’t read too much into that — the pok*r referral spam lessened somewhat and the corrected total takes that into account.
Our top ten most popular pages are
christian-sauve.com/index.html 432 christian-sauve.com/texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 185 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2001.htm 159 christian-sauve.com/texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 157 christian-sauve.com/novel/index.html 156 christian-sauve.com/reviews.html 147 christian-sauve.com/about.html 121 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2004.htm 107 christian-sauve.com/texts/summer-films1999a.htm 102 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-1997.htm 101
Few changes this month. Movie material continues to be a top draw. The only new thing is the /novel/ page, which was my daily NaNoWriMo journal as I wrote an entire novel during the month of November.
If you care about such things, (and who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Netscape|6 2618 (2214) Explorer|6 2324 (2874) Googlebot|2 411 (346) Netscape|4 364 (New) msnbot|1 165 (New)
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 733 (812) www.google.ca/search 225 (220) google.co.uk/search 83 (75) yahoo.com/search 77 (71) ask.com/web 69 (64)
New new links this month. Other than the referal spam stuff, that is.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
Rummaging through our mailbox, we see…
1. A sharp-eyed visitor from England notices my scientific take-down of Adrian Berry’s The Next 500 Years and adds…
Congratulations on posting (not merely catching) the time dilation howlers in Adrian Berry’s “The Next 500 Years”. Alongside these two, I spotted his use of Kinetic Energy = 0.5 m v^2 for input values approaching c in the BASIC program that appears in the appendix. Slightly more entertaining (in a very sad way) was his claim that the origin of the factor of 1/30 in the reduction of energy required to lift matter from the Moon’s surface compared to lifting it from the Earth’s surface arises as the product of the ratio of surface gravities (1/6) and the ratio of escape velocities (1/5). By my algebra, this equates to the claim that “all astronomical bodies are the same density”!
Together, we can shame editors in hiring better scientific fact-checkers! (The two extra blunders have been added as an update to the review.)
2. Another fellow Sauve (From Minnesota) makes the trek to my site and sends…
Howdy, I’m a Sauve too. Just dropping a line. I was just searching domain names for “sauve” and came across your site. Amusing. Cheers!
Cheers indeed!
3. An award-nominated author asks…
I’m wondering if you’d be interested in receiving a review copy of this book?
Alas, we do not accept review copies any more. www.christian-sauve.com: your source for independent and merciless reviews.
3. The brother of a friend I haven’t seen in a long time writes to say (translated):
I read your essay on Canada and it’s pretty accurate and perceptive.
The last paragraph made me think about the role that Peter F. Hamilton gave to Canada in his Night’s Dawn trilogy; founders and guardians of an interplanetary gouvernment.
Sadly, my correspondent has a better memory about Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn than I do four years after reading the series: All I can remember on the subject is thinking that Hamilton’s apology for monocultural colonies was completely incompatible with Canada’s ideals.
But I did read the trilogy two years before writing my essay on “Being Canadian”. It certainly stuck somewhere in my mind…
4. Search Queries Oddities
(This being the section in which we take a look at the search engine queries used by various visitors to find christian-sauve.com)
Here are our top-ten queries:
>being canadian 10 >christian sauve 10 >solaris explained 9 >solaris explanation 8 >amazon isbn 7 >fight club book review 7 >advance screenings 6 >good films 6 >frank camper 5 >free movie premiere tickets 5
Not much to say here.
December 2005
Here are the monthly highlights for christian-sauve.com:
1. Mmm. Numbers…
My prickly “Urchin” web stats engine tells me that…
Report for: christian-sauve.com, December 2005 Total Visitors: 5,704 Total Pageviews: 11,843 (Corrected Total: 8,047) Total Hits: 13,217 Total Bytes Transferred: 280.0MB Average Visitors Per Day: 196.68 Average Pageviews Per Day: 408.4 (Corrected Average: 259.6) Average Hits Per Day: 455.75
The “corrected” numbers take out the CSS, robots.txt, PDFs, mis-filed graphic files (ICO, GIF, JPG) and other non-public files mistakenly considered “pages” by the statistics pre-digestion engine. All results are significantly lower than last month: December holidays, plus three-and-a-half days of missing logs. (Grrr.)
Our top ten most popular pages are
christian-sauve.com/index.html 345 christian-sauve.com/texts/free-movie-tickets.htm 195 christian-sauve.com/texts/worldcon-2004-noreascon4.htm 136 christian-sauve.com/texts/solaris-explanation.htm 128 christian-sauve.com/reviews.html 122 christian-sauve.com/about.html 107 christian-sauve.com/texts/summer-films1999a.htm 106 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2001.htm 100 christian-sauve.com/reviews/movies-2004.htm 94 christian-sauve.com/reviews/index.html 93
Few changes this month. Movie material continues to be a top draw.
If you care about such things, (and who would not?), here’s a look at browser statistics for the month (by visitors, last month’s results in parentheses):
Netscape|6 2179 (2618) Explorer|6 1732 (2324) Googlebot|2 304 (411) Netscape|4 304 (364) Explorer|5 255 (New)
This is the first month that Netscape|6 has so distinctly pulled ahead of Explorer|6.
2. Where do these people come from?
Our top five sources of referrals (in visitors) were
google.com/search 656 (733) www.google.ca/search 172 (225) google.co.uk/search 64 (83) yahoo.com/search 60 (77) ask.com/web 58 (69)
No new links this month.
3. Ohh! Visitor comments!
Rummaging through our mailbox, we see…
1. James from Michigan is puzzled:
I’ve only been reading “real” sci fi for about 4 years, and clearly have a long way to go before I could call myself a well-read sci fi geek. On many of these topics I simply haven’t read the books in question…yet. (…) My question involves your praise of the book Red Mars. Currently I’m struggling through it and find it well, just a little boring. Its exposition seems long winded, its description Tolkeinesque. I’m aware that not all books are gonna speed along like early Phillip K. Dick but this seems to go on and on. I’ve considered the possiblity that I haven’t developed enough as a reader but I devoured Dune and loved it. What are your thoughts?
Exerpts from my reply:
I wish I would answer something more interesting than “well, tastes differ”, but that’s what the next few lines will eventually suggest.
I find it appropriate that you’re using the term “Tolkienesque” given how many readers love Tolkien, even as a number of other readers (myself included), were exasperated by the wordiness of his prose. Is Red Mars any snappier? Hardly. But by combining careful writing with the breadth of details (both scientific and social) that became mandatory for large-scale SF extrapolation, Red Mars crystallized a lot of what SF wanted to become in the nineties. Its importance as a piece of SF is unarguable. But, as you have found out, so is its length!
I won’t argue that the book is long. But I may argue that I liked Red Mars (and the rest of the trilogy) for those interminable details, for the “sense of place” (and time, and society) that Robinson was able to create. Tapestry of the future and all that, which may not fascinate other readers as much. Personal preferences definitely apply: I may not care too much about the trivia of a fantasy middle-earth, but give me a solid picture of the future and I’ll sit in place for a while. Robinson managed to hit “that spot” and I happily followed along.
(…) I used to place a lot of faith in my eventual development as a reader, only to find that I didn’t like Ursula K. LeGuin ten years ago, and I still don’t today.
(…) Don’t worry about it. Don’t like Robinson? It happens. You’re not alone! Hop on to the next author. It’s a good thing that you’re planning to read a lot more SF: some of it will stick and some won’t. Get ahold of the Hugo Winners (the real list, not my “Alternate Hugos” remix) and make your way through the books, good and bad. The genre is big enough to accomodate all sorts of readers.
4. Search Queries Oddities
(This being the section in which we take a look at the search engine queries used by various visitors to find christian-sauve.com)
Here are our top-ten queries:
>solaris explanation x21 >solaris explained x13 >being canadian x9 >free movie screenings x9 >advance movie screenings x9 >advance screenings x9 >good films x8 >christian sauve x6 >amazon isbn x5 >solaris ending x5
Not much to say here.
Until next time, my name is Christian Sauvé and I remain… obsessed by web statistics.